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BIONICLE Video of Nuremberg Toy Fair


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Toy news site Atamaii.tv

a video with pictures of all BIONICLE 2015 sets. This summer we get five villains, plus Ekimu is included in one of the villain sets, including the Mask of Creation! Apart from that, we get lots of bones and skulls. The villains' aesthetic may or may not be your thing but you should definitely check it out for yourself - it's something BIONICLE hasn't really done before. Also, I tell you, LEGO is purely evil for luring us with those glorious co-injected gold and transparent Toa masks...

 

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These new sets looks amazing

 

That... can be argued. Personally, I think they might just be the worst sets to carry the Bionicle name in a decade.

I have slept for so long. My dreams have been dark ones. But now I am awakened. Now the scattered elements of my being are rejoined. Now I am whole. And the Darkness can not stand before me.

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On a set design level, I feel like the villains are lacking much of what this first wave has. Perhaps it's the exposure of the bones, but they look hollow and gappy overall (such large knees on tiny limbs!) compared to the fluidity of the Toa and Protectors. Example being the structure of the scorpion, for a function creature it doesn't have the same level of LEGO quality as what I can imagine they could achieve (consider HF creatures). It may satisfy the taste of some, but it's not my cup of tea.

 

Ekimu is probably my favourite part of the second line, though it is possible he achieves his cohesiveness from his smaller stature.

 

Regarding the pieces, they look useful, both in new molds and colours. They will be a welcomed addition to my collection. Is that a non-black torso piece I see? Or perhaps it's just the lighting...

 

Still good to see these sets getting coverage already. Gives hype to the release!

Edited by Torran
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I'm loving the use of Cinderella's carriage wheel on Ekimu's shield. I'll wait until we get better pictures to reserve judgement, but from these initial glimpses I'm not super impressed with the villains. Mainly because those upper leg/knee shells are way too large to jive with the skeletal appearence they were going for. It just looks awkward.

 

We'll see.

Edited by Vorahk1Panrahk2
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BZPRPG
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Best looking villain sets I've seen in a long time. Defiantly getting all of them once they're released,  

Edited by Chasm
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I'm not too fond of these... They are not horrible and have some nice pieces, I like the skull mask, too but overall, they range from lame to okay. None of them stands out to me as a great set. Skull Grinder has the Ekimu and MoC bonus of course and is okay besides that, but not too exciting, Skull Basher looks okay, too (not a fan of the huge horns, though) but Skull Scorpio is crazy and Skull Slicer is pretty lame - so much indeed that he even reuses the Skull Spider mask. I bet they'll all look much better in the cartoon than they do as sets. :P Those Toa masks are too glorious, though. And I'll admit they all do look pretty creepy so they did succeed in that. The skeleton aesthetic is a like or dislike thing so if you don't like that you simply won't like these. I think they could have managed the aesthetic better but it's alright. I don't know yet if I'll get any of these, I guess I'll decide when reviews come up.

Edited by Gatanui

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While these larger sets are obviously not as strong as some gen1 sets, i like them because of what they represent/what they're trying to do. Would this sort of skelatal theme be even possible back in gen1? right out of the gate, they do something with bionicle that wasn't possible before. While the execution of these sets is not perfect (asside from ekimu, oh wow), the ideas and thoughts behind them, at the very least, give me strong confidence in where gen2 is going.

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Hi.

If you remember me from when I was most active on BZP, from 2009-2011...

I know I was cringy. But please keep in mind I was literally 12.

 

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I must say, Skull Slicer's chest details are very cool and make for an overall interesting chest plate, and my updated prediction on Ekimu having one geared arm is true. :D

 

In all seriousness, these new sets are awesome with their fluorescent shells and skeletal appearences, which however, also turn people away from them. I'm also really liking the new mask colors, but if only there were new colors for the Mask of Fire and Mask of Water, we would be getting a full set. Ah well, we might get them at a later date.

Edited by Rooster Nui
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I wonder if the new trans-lime/ gold masks are meant to be infected. That would be weird right after the possibly mind-controlling skull spiders though.

These sets don't seem very much like Bionicle though.  Don't get me wrong, I like the new florescent pieces and everything, but at first glance I would call them Hero Factory rather than Bionicle. 

Mantax can win connect four in three moves.

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I'm buying all of them. Not because I like all of them, (Skull Slicer and Skull Basher don't look too attractive,) but because they all have "BIONICLE" written on the box.

 

I don't see why people are complaining about the bare-bones skeleton aesthetics. I've never been one to like sets without shells on their bones either, but given they are supposed to be zombies/skeletons, I have nothing to complain about. (everything else aside)

 

:b: :m_o: :n: :e:     :h: :e: :a: :m_d: :s:     :l: :m_o: :l:

 

Who else thinks Ekimu is adorable?

Edited by The Meta Knight

MetaKnight.gif  Stay vigilant, my friends. MetaKnight.gif

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meh these... well... 

I'm not too fond of these... They are not horrible and have some nice pieces, I like the skull mask, too but overall, they range from lame to okay. 

Couldn't have said it better myself. The only two I could find myself partially interested in were Grinder+maker and Basher. I think my Bonkle funds are going to be used to get gen1 this year. Disappointing tbh.

 

I WANT THE TRANS MASKS THO.

Edited by kanohi of jello

move along.

nothing to see here.

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I can definitely see the skeleton design. The armour choice definitely leaves a lot to be desired though. I love the colours and weapons, and the fact that each have some pretty individualized functions. We have a Scorpion, a crossbow wielder, a bulky dude and a four-armed lanky character. Good variety. 

 

When I look at the big set though, I can't help but feel a bit disappointed. Yes, Ekimu looks great! A lot of functionality for a design so small. And we get two awesome masks! But Skull Grinder looks like the least exciting of the 5 new villains.

 

Cool stuff though. Looking forward to the summer wave!

 

-NotS

Edited by Nidhiki of the Shadows

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Personally, the overuse of transparent plastic is turning me off the skull folks. Plus the weird color placement (bright colors against drab colors draw the eye to important places and this guy's midsection is not important) and unfortunate color combinations. Lime green and bright blue used together looks awful against gunmetal grey. Same with lime green and bright orange.

 

Torran also mentioned the disconnect between massive armor and tiny limbs and I agree. Still, those masks look nice and I like how the four-armed guy has a gear function that looks like it swings all four arms at once.

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My glee coming about the new CCBS shells and other new and recolored pieces greatly exceeds any dislike for the overall set designs. Here's the part where I yell for Lego to take my money.

 

As I said elsewhere, the gold shell extensions on Ekimu are great to see. It's also neat that Ekimu's hammer is a recolor of the six-shooter piece. I initially assumed it was this piece. The gunmetal scorpion legs are good, although I wish they were black as they had initially appeared. 

 

And oh my, those masks look superb.

 

~B~

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My glee coming about the new CCBS shells and other new and recolored pieces greatly exceeds any dislike for the overall set designs. Here's the part where I yell for Lego to take my money.

 

As I said elsewhere, the gold shell extensions on Ekimu are great to see. It's also neat that Ekimu's hammer is a recolor of the six-shooter piece. I initially assumed it was this piece. The gunmetal scorpion legs are good, although I wish they were black as they had initially appeared. 

 

And oh my, those masks look superb.

 

~B~

Will it be the second time America's officially got that piece? (Queen Beast only had one, I think.)

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My glee coming about the new CCBS shells and other new and recolored pieces greatly exceeds any dislike for the overall set designs. Here's the part where I yell for Lego to take my money.

 

As I said elsewhere, the gold shell extensions on Ekimu are great to see. It's also neat that Ekimu's hammer is a recolor of the six-shooter piece. I initially assumed it was this piece. The gunmetal scorpion legs are good, although I wish they were black as they had initially appeared. 

 

And oh my, those masks look superb.

 

~B~

Will it be the second time America's officially got that piece? (Queen Beast only had one, I think.)

 

That's correct. It's a pretty unique CCBS piece, and I'm glad it's in another set to be released in America.

 

~B~

Edited by Ballom
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Ehhh... I think the new sets are pretty decent, but... I feel kinda like the wait for the summer line isn't going to be that exciting. They're fine sets and all, but only 5? It just seems odd. Especially when the summer wave always had so much variety. I'd like to see some proper titans with more complex builds, they played such a big part in the summer waves in the past. 

That said, Skull Warrior (or whichever one with the bow) is pretty freakin' rad. 

Edited by Xarok

-BE EXCELLENT TO EACH OTHER-

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I'm generally fairly impressed with these designs. When I heard reports from London Toy Fair that most of these sets were humanoid, I was worried they would not offer a lot of variety in terms of action features, but thankfully most of them do manage to be more than just "evil Toa" from a functional standpoint. Skull Warrior has a firing bow like the Protector of Jungle, Skull Basher's arms swing horizontally rather than vertically, using a function similar to Dragon Bolt's wings, Skull Scorpio has a grabbing tail, and Skull Slicer has FOUR swinging arms rather than just two.

 

I think the weakest designs of the lot are Skull Scorpio and Skull Warrior. Skull Scorpio's tail feels a bit wonky thanks to the function, and Skull Warrior's chaotic asymmetry just doesn't work for me the way the more balanced asymmetry on sets like XT4, Splitface, CHI Panthar, and Pohatu does. I love how despite all the evil characters having the same skeleton theme, they still have unique personalities. For instance, Skull Basher is clearly a heavily-armored powerhouse, while Skull Slicer is lean and agile by comparison.

 

Ekimu looks great, but not a whole lot of surprises there for those of us who have been looking intently at the animated version of the character and speculating on how he's built. It's nice that the set comes with both a Warm Gold and Tr. Light Blue protector/villager mask and the Mask of Creation! Speaking of masks, I also love the blended Toa masks that come with the other sets — though like others, I hope we aren't going to miss out on a similar Mask of Fire or Mask of Water just because there aren't enough sets to include each of the six masks in a different set.

 

I'm not sure what to think about the new "bone" piece the villains use. It looks great and plenty sturdy, but its versatility seems limited. However, Skull Slicer does showcase how it results in a very different look from a regular beam. Also, I'm curious if it might have anything to do with the rumored Star Wars buildable figure sets, which have been compared to the Super Heroes constraction sets from 2012. Star Wars does have a number of bony droids that might put such a piece to good use.

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When I first saw the first couple pictures I was super excited, but by the end I was quite disappointed... Every single line in Bionicle which is one of the reasons that I have absolutely loved Bionicle over the years was that for every good guy there's a bad guy... This is the only time that this has not happened... I feel like LEGO is just throwing money away by doing this. Why wouldn't you make the 2 sets? 

 

The sets themselves... I like the idea of the skeleton type look great idea, not necessarily sure they were able to capture the idea idea in the right way though... The giant chest pieces? why? Skull warrior, looks cool I like him weapon choice I feel like is a bit lacking, but I can look past that. Skull Slicer, I instantly think of general grievous... And a re-used mask, but I love the colors. Skull Basher, Love the colors! Why the Fun would you not use horns that are filled in completely... If they weren't filled in on the underside, that's one thing, but the way that it will be displayed will forever look bad now. Skull Scorpio.... Really? A lamer version of the nui-rama that doesn't really have a legit enemy here, huge disappointment... Mask Maker... Meh I just don't care about him in the least, not in this form. Skull grinder is by far my favorite out of all of these, maybe the only savior out of all of these sets. The mask with the horns, great job at creating the look of a villain. Overall still can't get pass the fact that there's sets missing here, that's the biggest trope of all of this for me... LEGO what are you doing?

~T:ToT~

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